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WASHINGTON — The U.S. military is considering arming some of its military units with Israel’s state-of-the-art drone, designed primarily for urban combat. This is the miniature Spike-Firefly developed by the Israeli company Rafael and is already in service in Israeli special forces and other military units.
Spike-Firefly is only 16 inches tall and carries a 350g warhead. It weighs about 5 pounds. Spike-Firefly is high-tech loitering ammunition and despite its small grinders, it has an integrated “multispectral seeker with both an uncooled IR sensor, high-definition CMOS day sensor as well as a proximity sensor allowing the system to detect, identify, track, and home on very agile targets,” as Breaking Defense writes. An operator is only needed to manage the loitering munition.
The U.S. military has already conducted several tests with Spike-Firefly and is currently evaluating the results. After analyzing the test data, the Pentagon will decide whether Spike-Firefly will become part of the armaments of US special forces, marines, or other military units.
Israel has already tested the capabilities of Spike-Firefly. First, Rafael said, seven infantry units were trained to work with drones, and then the Israeli military tested Spike-Firefly in urban conditions. The Israeli military simulated a hidden position of a sniper in urban conditions, which was positioned in the upper parts of a building, after which the “fireflies” were fired and blew up the position successfully.
According to publicly available information, in 2020 Israel adopted Spike-Firefly, and according to unconfirmed information, “fireflies” were recently used against positions of terrorists who shot at soldiers of the Israeli army.
Experts predict a very good future for Spike-Firefly. In an urban environment, storming positions can save soldiers’ lives if such robotic technologies are used to detect and eliminate enemy forces. In this way, the enemy will have to deal not with manpower, but with something that he may not see, nor will it impress him that he is part of the armament of the people he is facing.
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